The present invention pertains generally to fish attracting devices and compositions for use in such devices, and pertains more particularly to compositions capable of attracting fish organoleptically and to fishing lures employing such compositions.
Lures designed to attract fish visually have been used for hundreds or even thousands of years. Such lures include brightly-colored devices that imitate to some extent the appearance of an insect, and devices that produce complex motions or sound patterns that attract fish when such a device is moved through water.
In addition to lures of numerous types, live bait continues to be used by many fishermen. It has long been recognized that an artificial lure which, to a fish, resembles live bait, but which can be stored and reused, would be highly desirable. Attempts to achieve such an artificial lure date back at least to the beginning of the twentieth century, with the development of rubber worms. More recently, plastic worms incorporating fruit and other scents therein have become commercially available. Soft rubber lures made of a polyvinyl chloride plastisol formulation are also available in a variety of shapes, e.g., beatles, night creatures, etc. Such formulations typically include a mechanical dispersion of rigid polyvinyl chloride, petrocarbon or organic plasticizers, any of a number of heat stabilizers, colorants and small amounts of performance additives.